


Dance With the Devil

by DinerGuy



Category: Magnum P.I. (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, Family, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Interrogation, Kidnapped, Mystery, Ohana, Suspense, Torture, Whump, and the return of ivan, featuring the mysterious white suv
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-17 06:20:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29345769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DinerGuy/pseuds/DinerGuy
Summary: A shadowy foe has surfaced in Hawaii, Magnum's gone missing, and the mysterious white SUV might have everything to do with cracking the case.
Comments: 34
Kudos: 74





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Been working on this one for a while... months, probably, when you consider how long I've had portions of the plot scribbled down. Things being as they are with life right now, though, I'm only just getting around to posting it - and it's not even fully complete, but I'm far enough into it that you (hopefully) shouldn't have to wait too long between chapters. Plus, I wanted to get it up before the show turned this into an AU. 0:)
> 
> Big thanks to frankie_mcstein for the help plotting and helping me iron out various wrinkles in the story.

It was another bright, sunny afternoon in Honolulu. A rainstorm had passed through earlier in the day, but now the clouds had cleared. The only evidence of the bad weather was the rainbow painted across the blue sky.

Anyone driving on one particular residential street that afternoon with their windows down would have been treated to good-natured, arguing voices coming from the Ferrari cruising down the road with its top down. The man behind the wheel was engaged in a spirited conversation with the woman in the passenger seat.

"I'm telling you," the dark-haired driver was saying as he braked for a stop sign, "it's just simple math."

"Oh right. Simple." The woman laughed and rolled her eyes.

"Sure. Rick and T.C. do all the books for their businesses, and I did mine for the whole P.I. business for years! You don't need to hire some guy to do your taxes. You'll save money and time if you do them yourself." Magnum glanced over at Higgins from behind his aviator shades before slowly accelerating across the intersection.

They swung out into traffic on the busy street as Higgins sighed.

"That may be true, Magnum," she began, "but the books for Robin's Nest are a  _ bit _ more complex than La Mariana's. And they're nowhere close to the paltry amount of income you brought in for your cases — even when you weren't accepting barbecue grills and livestock as payment. Honestly, did you even claim those on your taxes?" Higgins shook her head and chuckled at the look on her partner's face. "And this is why I'm taking care of our tax returns this year now that I'm part of this little venture."

"Oh, come on," Magnum protested. "It's not like I ever got audited by the IRS or anything." He shot Higgins a look at the mumbled "yet" from her side of the car as he continued. "I did perfectly fine on my own."

She was about to retort when she happened to glance in the side mirror. Something caught her eye, and she broke off her first word.

"Aha. So you  _ do  _ think I know what I'm doing," Magnum said with a triumphant grin.

"What? No," Higgins objected. "That's not it. Look." She gestured toward the rearview mirror. "Do you see it?"

He glanced up to look in the mirror, then darted his eyes back to the traffic around him. A moment later, he checked behind them again. And, this time, his eyes narrowed as he spotted what he knew right away was what his friend had indicated. "The white SUV."

"They've been tailing us for the last three blocks," Higgins informed him. "At least."

Increasing his speed, Magnum quickly switched lanes without signaling. Someone nearby laid on their horn, but he didn't pay them any mind. Glancing back again to keep tabs on the SUV, he swerved into the far lane and then switched back after passing two cars and a truck.

The white Tahoe had increased its speed and swerved through traffic to close on the Ferrari. It was still behind them, the driver maintaining his distance well. Regardless of the amount of traffic, the other driver consistently stayed at least three cars behind Magnum and Higgins.

"Who are these guys anyway?" Magnum muttered. He was asking the question out loud but didn't expect Higgins to have an answer. Neither of them knew much; what little information they had was hardly anything to go on. An unknown driver had rented the Tahoe, and the local contact the rental place had was Thomas Magnum. Although, since Magnum was the one being actively tailed by the rented vehicle, he hardly thought that was very fair.

He clenched his jaw and tightened his grip on the steering wheel. He'd had too many nightmares about whoever was in that vehicle to feel safe when it was around. Even though he knew they had just been dreams, he could still vividly see the images his mind had conjured up of men with guns leaping from the SUV to riddle the Ferrari with bullets.

Higgins shook her head. "Should we call Detective Katsumoto?" she asked, her voice drawing Magnum from his thoughts. "Maybe he can have someone pull this guy over."

As if the other driver had heard her question, the Tahoe suddenly turned onto a side road and disappeared. Magnum and Higgins glanced at each other, knowing there was no hope HPD would be able to find it now, even if Katsumoto could send a patrol car right away.

"You know, this guy's really starting to get on my nerves," Magnum said, his eyes flicking back to the rearview mirror as if he expected the vehicle in question to suddenly reappear. "Why all the subterfuge? He clearly knows where to find me."

"Yes, well…" Higgins made a face. "Be careful what you wish for, hm, Magnum? Whoever this is clearly is up to no good."

The rest of the drive back to the estate was uneventful, but both investigators' thoughts were still on the SUV and its driver. Although they didn't see the vehicle again that afternoon, neither Magnum nor Higgins could shake the feeling they were still being watched.

* * *

"Hey, Higgy," Magnum greeted as he stepped into the office in the main house later that night.

Higgins was sitting at her desk, focused on the laptop open in front of her. She glanced up and took a sip from the mug in her hand as Magnum walked into the room. "Yes?"

"Did you see the email from that prospective client that just came in?" he asked, waving his phone in her direction. "Sounds pretty urgent. Wanna meet with them tomorrow?"

"Ah," Higgins said slowly, sucking in air between her teeth. "I… have an appointment with the accountant for the estate tomorrow morning, and I don't know how long it will take."

Magnum nodded slowly as he walked over to take a seat in one of the chairs across from the desk. "Well, I could always meet with them myself. If you don't mind not being there for the initial meeting, that is; you can always run a background check on them afterward," he added. "But this could be a pretty big payday; it sounds urgent, and the guy even said that money is no object." He tilted his head and raised an eyebrow.

"Sure," she said quickly with a shrug of her shoulders. "I don't see why not. Just don't agree to anything I wouldn't, hm?"

That comment prompted a laugh from her partner. "Come on, Higgy. It's me."

"Precisely."

Magnum rolled his eyes, but he couldn't hide his grin. "Okay, fine. I'll set up a time to meet this guy at La Mariana, and then I'll catch you up on things after the meeting." He stood from the chair and glanced at his watch. It was his dad's old watch, the one Higgins had repurchased for him a few weeks before after he'd had to pawn it to cover the cost of new tires for the Ferrari. He still didn't regret having sold it, only the risk he'd had to take in doing so — which had nearly cost him the only thing he had left of his father's. Thankfully, it had turned out to be Higgins who had purchased it from the dealer, but Magnum was well aware how differently things could have turned out. "Well, it's getting late. I'll let you get back to preparing for your meeting tomorrow."

"And you have a meeting of your own you'd better prepare for," Higgins replied with a small shake of her head. "Good night, Magnum."

He gave her a wave as he headed out of the door. "Night."

* * *

"And here you are, brother," Rick said cheerfully as he handed a cold bottle to T.C., who had made himself comfortable on one of the barstools at La Mariana. "Here's to a very successful budget meeting between partners."

"Hmm," T.C. muttered, although there was a twinkle in his eye behind the sideways look he gave Rick. "One that would've been unnecessary had  _ someone  _ not let our insurance lapse so we wouldn't have had to pay for repairs from a  _ hurricane  _ ourselves."

Rick lifted his hands and put on the most innocent look he could muster. "Ah, come on. What's a little storm between friends?"

"You really gonna ask me that after we just went over those numbers?"

Before Rick could come up with a satisfactory retort, his phone buzzed in his pocket. "Saved by the bell!" he exclaimed as he pulled out the device. "It's Jules," he informed T.C., then swiped the screen to answer before the other man could say anything. "Hey, Jules!" he greeted as he put the call on speaker. "What's up?"

_ "Rick, _ " she replied, and he immediately picked up on the hint of worry in her voice.  _ "Is Magnum still there?" _

"Thomas?" Rick shot a questioning look at T.C., who returned it with a curious tilt of his head. "No," he replied, "we haven't seen him at all today. The bar's been pretty quiet."

"Why? What's up, Higgy?" T.C. asked, leaning toward the phone, his beer forgotten.

Higgins paused.  _ "It might be nothing,"  _ she said.  _ "Perhaps he ran out of petrol on the way and doesn't want to call one of us for help. But he was handling a client meeting on his own as I was tied up with something else. Trouble is, his meeting was over an hour ago, and I haven't heard from him since he left the estate." _

The two men exchanged glances.

"He, uh, hasn't been here at all today," Rick informed Higgins. "And we haven't had anyone here looking for him either."

They could hear her sigh over the speaker.  _ "Well, this can't be good." _

"You think he's in trouble?" T.C. asked in concern. His expression told Rick he already knew the answer to the question.

_ "I hope not. It may be nothing," _ Higgins said quickly.

"Or maybe it's something," Rick added. "It's too much of a coincidence that both Thomas  _ and  _ this client didn't show up here if they were meeting."

T.C. nodded and pushed his stool away from the bar. "We'll drive to the estate and see if we can spot him along the way," he announced. "With any luck, we'll find him trying to hike to the nearest gas station."

_ "You don't have to do that,"  _ Higgins protested.  _ "I can look into it; I'm sure he's just not answering my calls so that he doesn't have to admit whatever happened quite yet." _

"We're already on it, Jules," Rick assured her. "You can look into these clients of yours while we do that, just in case." Turning, he gestured to his employee, who was entering an order into the till. "Hey, can you watch the bar for me?" he asked her. "I have to go take care of something."

When she nodded, Rick turned back to the phone, which he was holding up as he quickly followed T.C. toward the door. "Don't worry; we'll find him. I'm sure it'll turn out to be nothing."

But even as he said the words, Rick was intensely aware of the sinking feeling developing in his stomach. He just hoped he was wrong.

By the time Rick and T.C. made it to Robin's Nest, both were more worried than they wanted to admit to the other. They knew Magnum often got himself into jams while investigating cases — and sometimes while just minding his own business. And although their friend also had more luck than most people, they had both known Thomas Magnum long enough to have more than enough experience being proven right for worrying about the man. Even since they'd all moved to Oahu, Magnum had been beaten up, shot, kidnapped… even yacht-jacked of all things. Under the current circumstances, his disappearance was more than enough reason for both T.C. and Rick to be concerned.

Higgins met them outside as they parked Rick's Porsche at the end of the driveway. The Brit was clearly as worried as the two men were, her voice all business but tinged with uncertainty as she saw they were alone. "I take it he wasn't just broken down on the side of the road."

Rick shook his head. "No sign of him or the car. Unless he took a back way, it doesn't look like he just ran out of gas."

"And every time I tried to call him, it just went straight to voicemail," T.C. added.

That prompted a nod from Higgins. "Yeah, I tried, too. No luck. And then I tried to ping his phone, but it seems to have been turned off."

"That's not great." Rick frowned. The looks his friends gave him said just how much of an understatement his comment was.

Higgins glanced absently toward the guest house and then back to the two men. "I started looking into the client who reached out to us last night, the one Magnum was going to meet at the bar this morning." Both T.C. and Rick noticed when her shoulders slumped ever so slightly. "The name was fake, and the email address was just created in the past two days." She rubbed the back of her neck. "If only I'd looked into them last night, this might—"

"Hey," T.C. interrupted her. "You couldn't have known."

Nodding in agreement, Rick reached over to pat Higgins' arm. "Besides, Tommy's been doing this P.I. thing for a while. This isn't all on you." He gave her a reassuring grin. "Come on. Let's just focus on getting our boy back."

Higgins gave a small chuckle. "Okay," she said, squaring her shoulders.

"I'll make some calls," Rick offered, pulling out his phone. "Put some feelers out. I'm sure someone will have seen something. Thomas couldn't just have disappeared without a trace."

"Well, why don't you two come inside?" Higgins offered, turning back toward the door into the main house. "I've started running a recognition program on traffic camera footage in the area. Hopefully that will turn something up."

"Should we call Gordon?" T.C. asked. "I know it's barely been a couple of hours, but…"

Higgins paused where she was stepping through the door and nodded. "You're right. We should loop him in — although there's every chance this will turn out to be nothing and Magnum just forgot to charge his phone." Her tone of voice said she didn't quite believe her own words.

The next few hours passed by in a blur, with all three working hard to exhaust every avenue they could think of for figuring out what had happened to their friend. They'd spoken with Katsumoto several times; the detective was tied up investigating a different he'd been assigned but willing to help however he could.

"Unfortunately, this isn't an official missing persons case yet, but let me know the minute you find any sign that Magnum didn't just get distracted chasing a lead on his own," Katsumoto had told Higgins. In the meantime, the detective had put out an alert for officers to keep an eye out for Magnum's car and had promised to call if anyone spotted it.

The three friends at the estate were on their second pot of coffee when Higgins sat back from her laptop with a strange look on her face.

"Guys, come look at this!"

Rick lowered his phone, where he had been busily texting, and tilted his head as he tried to evaluate the look on his friend's face. "Did you find something?" he asked hopefully.

In response, Higgins nodded and gestured to the screen of her laptop. She was sitting at the counter in the guest house, where the three friends had decided to move to start working on finding their friend. There was more space there, where they could all spread out and work on different leads while still being near each other in case there was news to be shared quickly.

T.C. moved from where he had been pouring himself a mug of fresh coffee in the small kitchen to join Rick behind Higgins. The footage from a traffic camera was up on her screen, paused on the still image of an intersection. Rick immediately recognized it as part of the route between the estate and La Mariana.

Pressing the play button to start the video, Higgins sat back so the two men could watch the scene unfold. They could see two men in high-vis vests standing near the road, one holding a "DETOUR, ROAD WORK AHEAD" sign, as they watched for oncoming traffic. Those watching could see a red Ferrari pull up to the intersection and idle as one of the workmen stepped up to say something to Magnum. A moment later, the P.I. slowly proceeded to turn down the side road where the workers had pointed him.

Rick and T.C. exchanged glances and then looked back to Higgins.

"Well, that might explain why we didn't find him on the way here," T.C. remarked quietly. It was clear his mind was working on the possibilities of what might have happened to their friend.

"Is there any footage from that road?" Rick asked Higgins, then let out a breath as she shook her head.

"No," she replied. "I checked, but it doesn't look like there are any cameras besides the one at the intersection. If something happened to Magnum there, we don't have any evidence of it here."

T.C. didn't waste another minute. "Let's go, Rick."

Even before Higgins had finished speaking, Rick had reached into his pocket to pull out his keys, and he waved them at T.C. in response as soon as his buddy had looked his way. "Way ahead of you."

"I'll wait here," Higgins said quickly. "Just in case he comes back." She didn't have to say anything more. They all knew it was important for someone to stay behind. They would never forgive themselves if Magnum managed to drag himself back to the estate, in need of help, and none of them were there for him.

* * *

The large room was dim and musty, lit by flickering light fixtures hanging from the ceiling by rusty chains. They creaked in the draft created by the ancient fan mounted into the wall. A meager amount of daylight filtered in through the grimy windows, dust dancing in the rays that managed to break through the dirty panes of glass. Metal shelves stood along the walls, filled with a combination of crates, cardboard boxes, and rusty metal tools. In the spaces between the shelves, pallets of crumbling, rat-eaten boxes stood stacked together.

A set of rolling doors filled one of the shorter walls, rust and discoloration indicating years of disuse. Grime matching the windows covered the pane of glass in the center of the exit door to the left of the rolling ones. Whatever the place had once been, it was now only a shell of itself.

At the far end of the room, across from the doors, the shelves and pallets of boxes gave way to an open area, with workbenches and peg walls with a few remaining tools lining the space. Dust covered everything in a thick layer of grime.

The fan's rhythmic creaking was punctuated by the metallic sound of chains jingling against each other and the heavy, pained breathing of the man currently hanging from them.

Sweat mingled with the dirt and blood running down the sides of Thomas Magnum's face. His left eye was swollen, and blood dribbled from the cut splitting his bottom lip. Bruises littered the rest of his face, a particularly dark one shading the right side of his jaw.

His arms, held above his head by his bonds, were covered in more layers of dirt, sweat, and blood. The manacles fastened tightly around his wrists had made their mark; the unforgiving metal had cut deep, and the bruised and torn flesh was a testament to how much so. Blood streaked Magnum's forearms, the muscles taut as all of his weight hung from his arms.

His head sagged against his chest, beads of sweat dripping down from his chin to add to the stains on his once-pristine shirt. The white button-down was no longer patterned with just red flowers and green foliage; it was now soaked with sweat and spattered with the blood that also marred his face and arms. The two men guarding him could hear the ragged sound of his breath as he struggled to keep himself on the balls of his feet. It was a brutal balancing act; his leg muscles were screaming for relief, but, if he let himself sag, his shoulders burned like someone had injected them with fire. He was already exhausted and would have gladly given into the bone-deep fatigue if not for the searing pain in his upper back that immediately drove any thought of sleep from his mind.

He shifted his position slightly as he coughed, a low, rumbling sound that echoed in his chest and sent new waves of pain flashing through him.

The shorter of the two guards looked over at their prisoner, wrinkling his nose slightly as he took in the way Magnum was leaning to the right and trying to smother a coughing fit. "I dunno, man," he muttered, shooting his buddy a sideways look. "Maybe we should let him down, give him a break. He won't be any good to us like this."

"You heard the boss," the other responded, raising an eyebrow. "We ain't gonna find out what he knows by playing nice." He nodded in satisfaction as the first man sighed and nodded slowly. "Just hold your horses. The boss will be back any minute."

There was more coughing from the prisoner then, and the chains rattled as Magnum slipped off balance and then struggled to regain his footing.

The tall guard just chuckled. "Don't worry; he can't hold out forever. We'll find out everything we need to know soon enough."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've left a comment on this story, I just want to say thank you! I may not have had the time/brainpower to respond to them yet, but I have read them all several times and it makes me happy to hear everyone's feedback and that you're all enjoying it. So, although I haven't replied yet, I very much appreciate them!

Rick pushed the car as fast as he dared, barely considering the speed limit, as he rushed to the location they had identified on the traffic video. It still seemed like it took forever to arrive at the intersection in question, but he was soon coming up to the road where their friend had turned off the usual route.

"Okay, Higgy," T.C. said, shifting in the passenger seat to hold out his phone where both he and Rick could hear it. "We're almost there." He watched through the windshield as the unassuming surroundings passed by.

It was a quiet stretch, punctuated every few minutes by a house set back from the road. Trees and other foliage hid much of the homes from view. And although the two men were keeping a watchful eye out, there was no sign of Magnum or the bright red sports car their friend had been driving when he left the estate that morning.

 _"Do you see anything?"_ Higgins' voice came over the phone.

T.C. started to shake his head, then frowned as Rick proceeded through an intersection. "Hold on. Rick, isn't this where he turned off?"

 _"What?"_ Higgins asked. _"Guys, what's going on?"_

"You're right!" Rick spun the wheel sharply to the left. Thankfully, no cars were coming from the other direction, and the Porsche successfully made the quick turn, tires squealing slightly on the pavement before it straightened out.

T.C. let out the breath he had sucked in when the car had suddenly changed direction. "Careful, man! Last thing we need is _us_ crashing right now."

"Sorry," Rick apologized quickly, his attention on the road rather than the conversation. "I almost missed it."

_"Guys!"_

"Sorry, Higgy," T.C. spoke into the phone. "Rick's just driving like Thomas is all."

"Hey," Rick defended himself, "I wasn't expecting it to come up so fast. I was looking for the workmen; I was hoping we could ask them if they saw anything."

His comment had T.C. turning in his seat to look back at the intersection. "You're right." He blinked. "They're not there anymore."

 _"Well, it has been half a day already,"_ Higgins said slowly. _"They must have finished up and moved on to their next job."_

"Yeah, but when was the last time you saw roadwork move at a quick pace?" Rick remarked with a small smirk tugging up the corner of his mouth.

T.C. just shook his head.

They drove in silence for a few more minutes, with Rick and T.C. both keeping a close watch around them. There was still no sign of Magnum or the Ferrari, however, and soon something else occurred to T.C.

"Rick… Does anything seem odd to you?"

"What?" Rick asked, taking his eyes off the road for a moment to glance over at the other man. "That it doesn't look like any work has been done out here in a while?"

T.C. nodded. "You'd think we'd see some sign of, well, _something_ to explain why those guys were there this morning."

They could hear the sound of keys clicking over the phone speaker just before Higgins took a sharp breath.

 _"Guys,"_ she said, and her voice was even more serious than it had been just moments before. _"I don't think those were actually city workers."_

Neither of the two men said anything, waiting for her to continue.

 _"I had a hunch when you said the men weren't there anymore and there not being any work done just confirmed it. I'd already started going through just the video from that intersection. I'd just had the computer looking for footage of the Ferrari, but then I just went back through more of the footage from just that intersection. It looks like the men arrived not long before the Ferrari did. And then,"_ she added, _"they got in a vehicle and followed him moments after he turned onto the road."_

T.C. swallowed, the knot in the pit of his stomach growing tighter with the news from Higgins. There was only one explanation for what she was telling them, and it wasn't good.

"Someone was after Thomas," Rick said grimly, voicing the same thoughts T.C. was having. "They arranged a meeting and so knew where he would be and when, so they could intercept him on the way with a staged diversion."

 _"It would seem so."_ Higgins' voice was tight. _"Keep a sharp lookout for anything out of the ordinary."_

"Don't have to tell us twice," T.C. replied quickly.

Rick slowed to nearly a crawl so he and his passenger could carefully evaluate everything as they passed it. For a few minutes, nothing suspicious jumped out at either of them. The road was quiet, there were stretches of land with no buildings, and they didn't see another soul as they drove. Although they hated to admit it, both were thinking this was the perfect place for an ambush; there were few potential witnesses and ample cover for anyone waiting to pull out in front of a target.

And, sure enough, a quarter-mile farther on, they spotted flattened grass at the side of the road.

No sooner had they passed the spot, then T.C. shouted, "There!"

Rick threw the car into park as T.C. lifted the phone closer to him. "We found the Ferrari," he informed Higgins, keeping his eyes locked on the tail end of the red vehicle he could see peeking out from behind a large bush by the side of the road. "Call Gordon."

And then both men jumped out of the Porsche, guns drawn in anticipation of trouble.

It took them less than a minute to determine there was no one around. The Ferrari was abandoned, the keys nowhere to be seen and door ajar.

The scattered bullet casings, one on the floorboard of the driver's side of the car and several more in the trampled grass nearby, had both of them swallowing hard. They didn't even need to check if Magnum's pistol was underneath the seat where he kept it for emergencies; the casings looked like the same caliber as Magnum's weapon.

But what concerned them the most, what sent both of their hearts into their stomachs even while they hoped for any other explanation than that their friend was injured or worse, was the blood spattered on the side of the car and staining the ground just outside of it.

"Maybe he got off a lucky shot," Rick said, glancing over his shoulder at T.C. He lowered his weapon to his side and looked around the deserted area, as if a clue was just waiting to jump out at him, then sighed heavily.

"Hey," T.C. said, giving Rick a knowing look. "Our boy's a fighter. We're gonna find him."

Rick knew his friend too well not to notice the slight catch to his voice, but he didn't point it out. "Yeah…" he finally said with a slow nod. "We just need to do it fast."

* * *

Despite the pain that flared through his shoulders every time he let his weight drop, Magnum was nearly ready to give in to the blackness clouding the edges of his vision. He'd already attempted to find any slack in the cuffs or any weakness in the chains holding him up without success. From the moment his captors had roughly hoisted him up, he'd been trying to work at the bonds, but chains were much more difficult to break out of than ropes or zip ties.

He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and tried to relax and push everything out of his mind. If escaping was out of the question at the moment, he needed to figure out what the guys who'd grabbed him were after. Whether he eventually escaped or his friends came to break him out, knowing who had captured him and why could help them take down the people responsible. He knew it wasn't just the men who were with him at the moment who were involved; someone in charge was giving the orders.

The guys who'd grabbed him, the ones who'd chained him up and already worked him over trying to get information on where his partner had hidden something — Magnum wasn't sure what they were after in particular, but it didn't matter because he wasn't going to tell them anyway — had said a few things regarding their boss. Even without that, though, he'd had a hunch they weren't the brains of the operation.

Now the question just remained _who_ their boss was and what he wanted that Higgins had. Or she, Magnum supposed, although he just had a feeling about that one.

Taking another deep breath through his nose and not even trying to hide his grimace at the movement, he swallowed and refocused his attention. He tried to think back over the past day or so since he'd been grabbed. He hadn't been fully conscious when he'd been taken to wherever he was currently being held and the hood over his head hadn't helped matters, so he wasn't going to get any information from that direction. That meant any clues to where he was or who had taken him would have to come from other means.

He'd already tried to think over the details of his capture, but he didn't remember much. It was a pretty sure bet trauma-induced amnesia was to blame, but knowing what it was didn't make the fact any better. He just couldn't remember much more than it having happened while he was driving to a client meeting. Beyond that, it was just a blur of shadows and a weird, blank space in his memories. What he did know, though, was whoever was after him had either known about his meeting or been following him and waiting for the opportunity to take him.

With that thought, the mysterious white SUV came to mind, and Magnum found himself wondering if whoever had been stalking him around the island had taken advantage of a time when Magnum was alone to finally grab him. It didn't seem too far of a stretch to assume, even if he didn't remember what vehicle had been involved in his capture. But questions remained. Who had been driving the SUV? What did they want? And, then, why had they chosen now to finally strike? It wasn't like that morning was the first time he'd been alone in weeks. If all the driver of the SUV had been waiting for was that, Magnum would've found himself captured long before.

The echo of footsteps nearby as someone approached interrupted Magnum's thoughts. He barely had the energy to open his eyes, much less turn around to face whoever was approaching him. It was probably just one of the men who were guarding him anyway, and Magnum had already seen enough of them to last him forever. Whether they were there to ask more questions or just rough him up more for fun, he really didn't care. The outcome was going to be the same regardless.

Then he heard a door close, and he knew someone else had joined the party. But since it didn't sound like the arrival was causing any kind of chaos in the room, he also knew it wasn't rescue.

Bracing himself for whatever was coming next, Magnum forced his eyes open and sucked in a breath at the effort even that seemed to cost him. When the room stopped tilting, he was still facing away from the door, so he couldn't see who had joined the goons. He was gathering the energy it would take to turn when a familiar voice met his ears and froze him in his tracks.

It was a cold voice he'd hoped to never hear again in his life, yet here the man was in Hawaii. And not only that, but Magnum was once again at his mercy.

Someone kicked the back of his knees, knocking his feet from underneath him and sending him spinning at the end of the chains. He couldn't hold back the cry of pain as the sudden motion wrenched his shoulders and pulled at his already injured ribs. His breathing came quickly and heavily, and he groaned at the way each breath sent fire flashing through him.

"Hello, Magnum," came the voice again as the man walked around into Magnum's line of sight. "It's been much too long."

Magnum panted through clenched teeth as he glared at the tall figure now standing across from him. He ignored the roughness in his throat to put on as unaffected an air as possible as he returned the greeting. "Ivan."

* * *

"Do you think this has anything to do with that white SUV that's been following you guys?"

At T.C.'s question, Higgins glanced up from evaluating the scene around the Ferrari. "I don't know," she said thoughtfully. "It's one of our best leads right now, but the problem is we don't know much about who's behind it."

He nodded absently as he turned to look back at the red car. Although all three of the friends had been over the scene multiple times, none of them had found any additional clues to tell them anything about who had taken their friend or why. There was nothing as easy as a cell phone lying under the seat or a note of some kind; Thomas had simply vanished without a trace.

Sirens from down the road caught their attention, and they turned to see Katsumoto's unmarked unit coming toward them. T.C. lifted a hand to wave at where Rick was pacing a few yards away, his phone pressed to his ear.

His buddy was having an animated conversation with whoever was on the other end of the line, one of his many contacts around the various islands. To say Rick was well-connected was an understatement; he seemed to know a guy everywhere they went. If it helped them find Magnum, though, T.C. wasn't about to complain. He could only hope whoever Rick was talking to would be able to help them out in their search for their missing friend.

By the time the HPD detective had pulled to a stop by the side of the road, Rick had ended his call and was jogging over to rejoin Higgins and T.C. next to the Ferrari.

"Hey, Higgins, guys," Katsumoto greeted them with a nod, his voice grim. He surveyed the scene and sighed under his breath. "This is how you found it?"

Higgins nodded. "None of us have touched anything," she told him.

"Noted," Katsumoto replied. "I've got people on the way to process the scene. What can you tell me?" he continued, turning to look at Rick questioningly. Higgins had told him the two men had found the abandoned car when she'd called him while she was pushing the speed limits to get to the scene herself.

Glancing at T.C., Rick let his gaze drift back over the Ferrari as he spoke. "Not much," he said. "Unfortunately. This is how we found it, but it doesn't look like there's much to go on. The bullets look like they came from Magnum's weapon, but your guys will need to run ballistics to know for sure. And then…" He trailed off as he again took in the bloodstains on the grass in front of them.

"Okay," Katsumoto said, and his tone conveyed just how worried he was without him having to say more. "I'm assuming no one saw anything else, right? There were no signs of anyone else having been here when you pulled up?" He looked between T.C. and Rick with a raised eyebrow. "There was no gunfight I need to know about that would explain any of these shell casings scattered around?"

"We would've told you," T.C. was quick to assure him. "Promise."

Rick nodded quickly in agreement.

"Trust me," T.C. added. "This is our boy we're talking about here; if something's going on, we'd tell you. We want him back more than anyone."

In response, Katsumoto gave him an understanding look. "I get it. I want to find whoever did this as much as you." He looked between the other three. "I'll let you know if we find anything here. For now, I'd say just go home and be patient, but I also know that's not going to happen. So just keep me updated if you get any leads."

"Will do, Detective. Thank you," Higgins replied.

T.C. and Rick started to echo her sentiment, but, before anyone could say anything more, there was the sound of a car engine from down the road.

The four friends glanced that direction almost instinctively, before looking at each other with a mix of confusion and surprise playing across their faces.

A white Chevy Tahoe was idling at the far end of the street. It was impossible to tell who was behind the wheel from the distance between it and the group by the Ferrari, but there was no doubt in anyone's mind that it was the same SUV that had been following Magnum and Higgins for the past few weeks.

Rick started forward instinctively, but the driver threw the vehicle into reverse and then spun the wheel. The SUV roared off down the road.

Without hesitation, Rick sprinted for his car. He heard footsteps crunching behind him, but he didn't look to see which friend was on his heels; there was no time to waste. He threw open the car door and jumped behind the wheel, then glanced over at the passenger seat at the same time as he jammed the key into the ignition.

T.C. nodded at him as the other man closed the passenger door.

Rick threw the Porsche into gear and slammed his foot onto the accelerator. The tires squealed and then gained traction on the asphalt.

A cloud of dust up ahead told them where the SUV had gone. Rick clenched his jaw and gripped the steering wheel as he focused on the road ahead. The other vehicle itself was nowhere to be seen, even as the Porsche gained on where Rick had last seen the SUV.

"Come on, come on, come on," Rick muttered as he scanned the area. It was eerily similar to when they'd been hunting for any sign of the Ferrari, only now he was looking for the probable perpetrator. He only hoped catching up to the Tahoe would lead to them finding Magnum.

Although there was still dust hanging in the air, there was no sign of retreating tail lights. By the time they reached the main road where the fake workers had redirected Magnum, Rick and T.C. had to admit any chance of spotting the SUV was long gone. Still, Rick looked right and left, hoping against the tight feeling in his chest that he'd somehow manage to catch a glimpse of the white vehicle.

He exchanged a look with T.C., noting that his friend's face looked as glum as Rick himself felt. Neither of the men said anything; they didn't need to.

Their best lead had just disappeared in a cloud of dust, and they had no other clues at the moment. Magnum was in serious trouble, and they had no idea how to find him.

* * *

Magnum winced at the pain that flared through his chest and tried to get his breathing under control. He was long past exhausted but knew he had to keep going. Whatever Ivan wanted, Magnum had a feeling things were going to get much worse — and quickly, unless his friends happened to mount a rescue in the next few minutes.

The larger of the goons, the one who'd delivered the blow that had stunned Magnum long enough to be tied to the chair, appeared just then. The man was grinning and holding a car battery in one hand and jumper cables in the other, and Magnum swallowed.

Okay, make that the next few seconds.

But instead of heading straight for Magnum, the guy lifted the battery onto one of the workbenches and draped the cables over it.

Magnum tilted his head slightly, trying to figure out what could be coming next. Clearly, they wanted information, but he was no longer sure it had anything to do with Higgins. With Ivan involved, it had to be something else, but Magnum was at a loss for what it could be. He needed more details, more information to piece together what was going on.

He already knew he needed to hold out for as long as it took his friends to find him or until he could figure out a way to escape. Maybe he could play Ivan at the same time and gather intel that would tell him exactly what was going on. After all the things Ivan had done to the people Magnum cared about, there was no way he was going to get away again, not if Magnum could help it.

Of course, he needed to get out of his current predicament first. He couldn't exactly escape with the way he was bound to the metal chair, but there was no obvious way out. His wrists were cuffed; the chain between the manacles was longer than standard handcuffs, allowing it to be looped through the slats on the back of the chair. A tug against the bonds only resulted in a rattling noise as the chains scraped on the metal rungs. With nothing he could use to pick the lock, he could only sit there and try to make it through whatever was coming.

Besides the chains around his wrists, several loops of sturdy rope held his ankles to the legs of the chair. He'd already exhausted himself and strained his muscles trying to work at the bonds when his captors' backs were turned, hoping that freeing his legs would allow him to take advantage of the opportunity to escape if it presented itself. However, it was to no avail. The knots were too tight.

"Now," Ivan said, his voice cold and level while simultaneously sounding like he was anticipating whatever came next. "Either you're going to tell me what I want to know, or things are going to get really bad for you really fast."

"All your men asked me was where my partner had hidden whatever it is you want," Magnum replied as nonchalantly as he could manage. "And while I really appreciated the motivation they supplied, I'm not sure I can tell you anything more than what I told them."

Ivan chuckled. "I see nothing's changed since we last met," he commented, shaking his head. "I would have expected a man as intelligent as you to realize you only have one move here."

"Really?" Magnum asked. "Because I was going to say the same thing to you. Turn yourself in now, and you might actually survive this."

There was a moment of silence as the two men stared at each other, then Ivan stepped back and laughed loudly. The two goons standing nearby joined in with smirks and chuckles of their own. And then, instead of replying to his prisoner's comment at all, Ivan just looked over at the others and jerked his head toward Magnum in some sort of instruction.

Magnum barely had a chance to blink before one of the men strode forward and grabbed the back of the metal chair.

The man pulled the piece of furniture back so it was balanced on its back legs, and Magnum felt his stomach knot at the sudden change of direction. His legs tugged involuntarily at the ropes in a reaction to the shift, but they were still tied tightly.

He realized what was going to happen just before the man released his grip on the back of the chair. Magnum had just enough time to wrap his hands around the lowest slat he could reach before the chair was falling, hitting the ground with a bone-jarring thud that reverberated through Magnum's entire body. His head flew forward and then back at the sudden movement, and he saw stars as his skull smashed into the concrete floor.

Everything went dim and fuzzy as time seemed to blur together. When things finally cleared, it took Magnum a moment to reorient himself. At first, the whole room seemed to be upside down. He blinked and tried to focus his eyes. It took another long moment, but then he suddenly realized he was lying on his back, still tied to the chair where it had fallen.

The curve to the back of the chair along with his foresight to shift his hands meant he'd escaped landing on them. He supposed he at least had that to be grateful for. There wasn't much at the moment, but at least it was something.

Shifting, he winced, feeling the pain that flashed through his shoulders and neck when he attempted to shift. Whether it was from them bearing his full weight for so long previously or from something that had happened when he'd been thrown backward, he wasn't sure. And it really didn't matter at the moment anyway.

The more pressing matter was what his captors had planned for this next part of the interrogation. He was in a less than ideal position — helpless, for lack of a better word — and completely at the mercy of Ivan's guys.

He fully expected a booted foot to land in his side at any moment, but none came. Magnum didn't let himself breathe easy, though; Ivan wanted something, and Magnum knew from experience the other man wasn't going to just let it go because Magnum claimed not to know anything. His mind helpfully supplied a dozen different things that could be about to happen, and none of them were good.

Movement somewhere above him caught his attention, and he carefully looked up. He clenched his jaw as his vision swam but forced his head to stay up. He saw one of Ivan's goons coming toward him with a large bucket in each hand. From the way the man's arm muscles were tensed and seemed to be straining, the containers weighed a significant amount. And, with his gaze still turned toward the goon, Magnum suddenly realized there were several other buckets already sitting behind his chair.

Footsteps next to Magnum's ear had him dropping his gaze to glance over to his right. The brief glimpse of a cloth in the second goon's hand, combined with what were no doubt buckets of water, was enough to confirm Magnum's suspicions.

"Are you going to answer my question?" Ivan asked. "Or do you need some encouragement?"

"I did answer it," Magnum replied simply, tucking his chin slightly to look up at where the other man was standing over him. "It might not be the answer you want to hear, but I did. So I guess we're done here."

A look flashed over Ivan's face, and he sighed. "I hoped for your sake we wouldn't get to this point," he said. "I mean, to be clear, _I_ don't mind how far we have to go. In fact, after what you've put me through, I'm more than happy to take this as far as you want."

Something in the man's tone told Magnum he meant exactly what he'd said.

Ivan waited a beat and then, when the man in the chair didn't respond right away, shook his head. "Well, don't say I didn't try to let you off easy."

"Okay, okay, wait a minute," Magnum spoke up quickly as Ivan gestured to the man holding the cloth. "Let's just talk about this. I'm sure we can come to some kind of understanding, right?" He glanced from the goon to Ivan and then over to the man setting the buckets down next to his head. The dull sound of water splashing inside of them did nothing to settle his uneasiness.

The goon with the cloth knelt next to Magnum's head.

"Last chance," Ivan said.

Magnum's gaze darted around, trying to come up with some sort of response to delay the inevitable. "Hold on." He looked back to Ivan. "What was it you were looking for again? Something you lost, was it?"

The last thing he saw was Ivan's smile before the cloth came down over his face.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That weird feeling when you hardly ever post a fic that you haven't actually completed yet and then you do... My brain isn't sure it likes this "can't adhere to a strict posting schedule" thing. xD

Knowing exactly what was coming didn't make the anticipation any less intense. Magnum felt his stomach clench as he tried to prepare himself. He'd been tortured before; his current situation was no different. The other men weren't going to kill him — not yet, at least; Ivan still needed the information from him. Although Magnum was completely certain that was going to happen eventually if he couldn't get away in time, it was clear his captors wanted to find out whatever they thought he knew first. That meant they were going to do their very best to  _ convince  _ him he was dying, but they weren't going to actually  _ let  _ him die.

He heard the muffled sound of sloshing from somewhere off to his left and sucked in as deep of a breath as he could manage — and barely had time to brace himself before the barrage of freezing water hit his face.

The towel was being held tightly over Magnum's face, pinned in place so that tossing his head did nothing to dislodge it.

And the water just kept coming.

Even though Magnum knew how to hold his breath for a significant amount of time, he wasn't sure how much longer he'd be able to resist taking in a breath. He'd had training, sure, but this was no simple mission where he was swimming to shore for an infiltration.

He felt the cloth settle around his nose and mouth, the water soaking the cloth causing it to form a seal of sorts around his face. Even if he had wanted to take a breath now, there was no way he would be able to.

His lungs burned as he gritted his teeth, resolving not to let the torture get to his head and cause him to take a breath. That would surely come with a lungful of water, and that would be the end of it. He couldn't allow himself to give in. He had to hold out, had to refuse to inhale. If he could just hold his breath for long enough…

The water continued to pour over his face in a steady stream.

His legs jerked against the ropes in an instinctive attempt to free himself, and his arms did the same against the chains. He knew he shouldn't be expending the energy; he needed to preserve every bit of oxygen if he hoped to make it through the torture, but he couldn't help it.

He tried to focus, tried to keep the rising panic down. It was one thing to hold his breath while swimming, even the times things had gone wrong. It was an entirely different thing now.

Somehow, he managed, even though his lungs were burning and he just wanted to  _ take a breath. _

There was a pause as the water let up, and the man holding the cloth over his face pulled it off. Magnum blinked in the lights now shining right in his face, inhaling deeply as soon as the sodden towel was gone. The quick breath included water droplets that had been on the edge of his nose, and he coughed as they went down his throat.

"Anything to say?" Ivan's voice came from the shadows.

"I can do this all day."

The goon smashed the cloth back down over Magnum's face just before the water resumed.

Magnum clenched his jaw again, resolving to outlast this next round. As the pressure on his face increased, he tried tossing his head to the side again but, again, had no luck. The guy holding the cloth down was strong, and the wet fabric was tight against Magnum's nose and mouth. The darkness from where it covered his eyes was inescapable, and Magnum knew he had no chance at getting out from under the towel.

His feet kicked again and his arms jerked as his body instinctively tried to get out from underneath the threat to his safety. He could feel the water starting to trickle down his nose, a combination of his head being tilted back and the incessant stream of water raining down on him. As the liquid crept into his nasal passages, his gag reflex was triggered, and Magnum began to cough and choke on the frigid water that just kept coming.

And then the cloth came off again. He gulped at the fresh air, feeling the burning in his throat and coughing even harder as his body tried to both expel the water it had already taken in and inhale as much air as he could manage.

"Where did your partner store the information she'd gathered?" Ivan asked.

Magnum just shook his head and coughed again; even if he could have spoken, he wouldn't have. There was nothing more to say.

And then someone's foot buried itself in his side, causing him to cry out and suck in a breath at the unexpected pain that flashed through his chest. At the same moment, the towel was again pressed down over his face, muffling his pained gasp, and the bucket of water was again upended over him.

He couldn't keep the water out of his lungs, and he began coughing and choking as it flooded his airway.

Everything was burning, and he couldn't stop it. His throat and nose and sinuses felt like they were on fire, and his attempts to still his breathing and calm himself were unsuccessful. He was suffocating, drowning, and he couldn't do anything to stop it.

His surroundings were already black, blocked out by the cloth obscuring his vision, but he still knew when he started to fade. The sounds of water pouring and men saying something nearby all blurred together. Magnum tried to stop himself from taking in more water, tried to tell himself it would all be over soon one way or another, but then everything started to fade away.

He could feel himself stop struggling as the world started to disappear…

The next thing he knew, the cloth was no longer over his face and someone was patting his cheek roughly.

Magnum groaned as his eyes flickered open on their own. He wished he could've just stayed unconscious; it was preferable to what was undoubtedly going to be another round of waterboarding.

He coughed, feeling the burning in the back of his nose, and had to turn his head to the side at the liquid that bubbled up in the back of his throat as he coughed harder. And then he was coughing more, his throat burning and his chest constricting. By the time he'd managed to calm his breathing, everything felt like it was on fire. He shut his eyes with another groan and cautiously exhaled.

"Come on, Magnum. I'm not going to let you give up that easily."

Tentatively opening his eyes, Magnum looked over at where Ivan was standing with crossed arms, watching him. "Why not? Seems like it'd be easier," he mumbled, then coughed again at the way the words grated on his throat.

"Tell me where the intel is, and this can all be over," Ivan said simply.

"What intel?" Magnum asked hoarsely. "I didn't even know you existed until you sent your hired guns after me. What—" Another cough interrupted him.

And then the cloth was back over his face, and the water started all over again.

* * *

T.C. gripped the wheel a little tighter as he watched the road. Higgins was sitting next to T.C. in the front of the Island Hoppers van while Rick was behind them in the middle seat. Both looked as worried as T.C. felt, along with the determined looks that also echoed what he was thinking.

Rick was working his phone again, no doubt texting contacts around the island and trying to gather intel on what might've happened to Thomas, while Higgins was keeping a close eye on the passing scenery.

"Up here," Higgins pointed, looking from the tablet in her lap back to the road. "Take this left."

"You sure this is where the white SUV went before the crime scene?" Rick asked. He tilted his head. "And do you think he was just scoping out our progress on the scene or was he coming after one of us now that he's got Thomas?"

Glancing up at the rearview mirror to meet Rick's gaze, T.C. shrugged a shoulder. "That's a good question. We don't even know what this guy wants, but I sure have a few questions for him," he added grimly.

Higgins paused where she was tapping on the tablet and turned to glance back at Rick. "Well, let's just hope we find something at the docks to tell us more." She didn't have to add that the information they were currently following was one of their only real leads at the moment. If this didn't pan out, they would be back to square one and at a loss for where Thomas might be.

"You're sure this is where the SUV was earlier today?" Rick asked then, letting his phone rest in his lap while he looked back up at the others. He lifted an eyebrow at Higgins. "You said it was right around the same time Magnum went missing, right?"

She nodded. "Since we had no luck tracking it down after it left the crime scene and managed to shake you two, I decided to try tracing its path in reverse on the chance that it would lead us to wherever they took Magnum."

"But we tried that before and we didn't have any sign of it when whoever took T.M. ambushed him," T.C. remarked.

"Yeah, and there aren't exactly an abundance of cameras around where he got attacked," Rick added.

Higgins made a face. "That's true, and it did make things a bit more difficult, but I… well, let's just say I borrowed a satellite feed and was able to run a program that found the SUV on surrounding roads close to the same time. Unfortunately, it didn't have data from the whole day, but I  _ was  _ able to find footage from when we saw it at the crime scene. Oh, turn right here, T.C."

"Let's just hope this isn't another dead end," Rick commented.

Higgins gave him a small smile and then shifted back in her seat to face forward again. A text box popped up on her screen, and she tapped to dismiss it and then started typing in one of the open windows as she watched the map they were following. There was only one reason the people who'd taken Thomas would have needed to go to the docks afterward, and it wasn't good.

It seemed her friends were thinking the same thing because T.C. sighed. "And that they took him to another island and not another country."

Neither of the others said anything in response, but they didn't have to.

Minutes later, they were pulling into a parking space near the docks. T.C. had barely cut the engine before Rick and Higgins jumped out and ran toward the edge of the water.

All three turned around, surveying the area and hoping desperately they'd find some sort of clue to point them to where their friend might have been taken. They knew more than to expect the kidnappers would still be nearby, but there was always the chance there would be something left behind.

They really didn't have anything else to go on.

Unfortunately, nothing looked out of place. Rick sighed and ran a hand through his hair as he looked around. Of the few people who were coming and going, none of them appeared suspicious in the least. There was a couple walking arm in arm, as well as a group of five college-aged kids toting an assortment of coolers and beach bags. Nothing about any of the passersby screamed "kidnappers" in any way, not even if Rick squinted. The couple seemed to be tourists, and the kids just looked like they were planning to head out for some fun on the water.

"I'm going this way," T.C. announced as he turned to the left and jogged down the dock.

Higgins and Rick exchanged a glance, then Higgins started toward the couple who had stopped to watch the horizon.

Rick let her go and headed in the opposite direction from T.C. He hurried down the boardwalk, listening to the water lapping at the side of the dock, and trying to take in everything around him. If the white SUV was connected to the ambush and Higgins had traced it to the docks, then that meant Thomas had been at the docks as well. And if Thomas had been at the docks, there had to be some kind of clue left behind.

He didn't want to think about what might happen if they couldn't find any new leads on the case.

Being unsure of what exactly was looking for didn't help matters at all. Rick stopped and sighed, scanning the area around him once again. It was possible Thomas was being held in one of the boats, but there were well over two dozen docked nearby and even more around the marina. It would be close to impossible to search all of them without alerting the kidnappers.

Rick cast one more look around before starting forward down the docks again, and that was when something in the corner of his eye caught his attention.

He glanced over and realized it was a small strip of paper fluttering in the breeze blowing in off the water. It was stuck on a splinter of wood on the dock near an empty berth.

At first, he was tempted to dismiss it, but something made him move closer to take another look.

He bent down to inspect the scrap more closely, and his chest tightened when he made out the design on the piece of orange paper. He would recognize it anywhere.

_ "Wait, you want us to wear these all week?" Thomas chuckled, studying the paper wristband in his hands. He glanced over at T.C., who spread his hands. _

_ "Don't look at me, brother. This wasn't my idea." _

_ Rick nodded, looking slightly offended as he took in the looks his friends were giving each other. "Come on, guys. It's not like I'm asking you to do something hard, and you're already wearing them for tonight anyway. It'll help promote the bar if you wear them around the island." He gave Thomas a pointed look. "I think providing a little advertising is the least you can do for everything I do to help you out." _

Thomas had laughed and agreed to do so, Rick remembered as he stared down at the wristband in his hand.

There was no question in his mind. It had to be Thomas's. It was simply too much of a coincidence not to be.

He spun around to look for Higgins and T.C. to show them his discovery, but then T.C.'s deep voice rang out from farther down the docks.

"Hey! Hey, guys!"

Rick quickly spotted his friend coming back toward them. Clenching the wristband in his fist, Rick quickened his pace, and he joined Higgins just as T.C. came up to the two of them.

"I just ran into a guy I know who works here at the docks," T.C. explained quickly, gesturing behind him.

"Oh, so you know a guy now?" Rick couldn't help asking with a smirk.

T.C. chuckled and shook his head. "His name's Eddie; I met him a few years back. Anyway, I asked him if he'd seen anything this morning that seemed suspicious, and it turns out he saw a few big guys boarding one of the boats here. Based on the time we know Thomas got directed onto the wrong road and when the white SUV was here, it seems to match up. They could be the guys we're looking for."

Rick's stomach clenched in anticipation. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Higgins shift, and he knew his friend was feeling the same thing he was. "Did he see Thomas?"

"No," T.C. replied, shaking his head grimly. "That's the problem. All we'd have now is circumstantial. It won't be enough to get the police involved."

"Maybe not." Rick tilted his head. He held out his hand to show the others the wristband he'd picked up. "I found this by one of the empty slips." 

T.C.'s eyes widened. "That's T.M.'s."

"If you know where you found it, we can get information from the marina on what boat was docked there this morning," Higgins spoke up. "And if Eddie can describe the men he saw, that puts us that much closer to finding who took Magnum."

They hurried to act on the information they'd found, and it wasn't long before Higgins had Katsumoto on the line.

_ "And your guy doesn't know anything about where this boat… the  _ Ora Lea _ was headed?"  _ the detective asked after they had explained the situation.

"No," Higgins replied. "All he could say was it pulled in very early this morning and then left again shortly after our timeline of when Magnum was taken. Whoever owned it didn't provide any information; our guy noticed it because it's never docked here before."

_ "Okay,"  _ Katsumoto sighed.  _ "I'll contact the Coast Guard and keep you guys in the loop. Thanks for the info." _

Rick cleared his throat. "Gordon, we—"

_ "Look,"  _ Katsumoto interrupted,  _ "I understand you all want to find Magnum. I do too. But you need to let me do my job. I'll reach out to the Coast Guard about the boat, and I promise I'll update you as soon as I know anything. For now, just sit tight." _

The call ended and the three friends looked at each other.

"He just has to say that," Rick finally spoke up. "But Gordon knows he can't keep us out of this, not when it's Thomas's life at stake."

Higgins and T.C. nodded.

"Of course, we're not going to just wait around for info from the Coast Guard," Higgins said with a nod. "I'll start working on finding footage of where the boat went after it left this marina."

"And I'll keep working my contacts," Rick added. "Someone has to know something. We just need to look under the right rock."

T.C. squared his shoulders. "We're going to find him."

They didn't have to wait long for Katsumoto and a team from HPD to arrive to process the scene at the docks. The three friends were waiting by the large orange van when the detective pulled up nearby and came over to join them.

Katsumoto glanced between the three and then looked meaningfully at the tablet Higgins was holding tucked against her side. "Anything I need to know?" he asked pointedly.

She just shook her head. "If there were, I promise I'd tell you. But I haven't had any luck so far. I have to, shall we say, wait for resources to become available in this situation."

"Uh-huh," Katsumoto replied slowly. He waited for a moment, then sighed. "Okay, so, what else can you tell me about what happened here?"

Rick cleared his throat. "Well, maybe your guys can get access to the cameras for the marina. It looks like there are a few placed around the property, but it's an old system, and the manager says we need a warrant. He won't budge on that."

"Meaning Higgins can't hack it and none of you could talk your way inside to get a look at the footage," Katsumoto remarked, shaking his head. "All right. Leave that to me."

"Anything from the Coast Guard yet?" T.C. asked then.

Katsumoto shook his head. "I've put in a call, just waiting to hear back at this point. Now," he continued, "where did you find the wristband?"

By the time they'd finished giving their statements and filling Katsumoto in on everything they'd managed to learn, it was late in the afternoon. All of them were well aware of how quickly the day was passing, and the idea of Magnum still missing after so long did not sit well with anyone. The last thing they wanted was for their friend to spend a moment longer as a prisoner, but the clues they did have didn't point them in any particular direction for finding him.

Rick was walking behind T.C. as they headed back to the van when his phone vibrated in his pocket. Quickly digging it out, he unlocked the screen to read over the text that had just come through.

T.C. and Higgins stopped to wait for news, knowing by the look on their friend's face that he might just have the break they needed in the case.

After a few moments had passed, Rick fired off a reply and then looked up to meet the others' expectant gazes. He swallowed and gestured with his phone as he started to explain. "It looks like someone was asking around a little while back about buying a boat off the record. Quick sale at twice the actual value."

"Sounds like it could be our guys," Higgins observed.

Rick nodded. "My guy said he could give us more info on the buyer, but he won't do it over the phone. In-person only."

"Just give me an address," T.C. said immediately. He had his keys in his hand and his jaw clenched in determination. "Let's go talk to this guy."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here goes the next chapter! I promise... some answers. 0:)
> 
> Thanks go to Marlab, not only for the beta-read on this chapter but also for the help in writing scents. As a writer with congenital anosmia (meaning I was born without a sense of smell) (and yes, I can taste; I just can't smell, so some flavors are either different or non-existent depending on how aromatic they are), I don't always think about including it, but I thought one of my scenes here could benefit from that added description. But of course, that meant I actually needed some input because I can only operate to a certain degree off of logical guesses and knowledge from other things I've read.
> 
> Also, I realize I never have done this before (partly because I don't always log in regularly), but I'm over on Tumblr if you want to come say hi! @itsjustdg

Magnum sat hunched in the chair, shivering as his breath came in ragged gasps.

Burn marks marred his still-damp shirt and told just how much Ivan had put him through after the waterboarding had stopped.

His captors were standing nearby, but Magnum could barely concentrate on them. He'd already lost all track of time. The constant barrage of water and the fact that he'd passed out at least twice during the first part of the interrogation had contributed to making him disoriented, nauseous, and completely exhausted. And the small sense of time he'd managed to regain had been chased from his mind as the metal ends of the jumper cables had been pressed against his chest.

Compounding the way his stomach was rolling was the smell hanging in the air. It wasn't just one smell, more a collection of them, and they didn't add up to anything appetizing. The room was musty, thanks to the lack of drainage keeping the water — the water the goons had just tried to drown him with, for that matter — in pools on the floor. Magnum could hear it sloshing every time one of his captors walked past him on one side.

The fan on the wall barely contributed any circulation to the air, and so it hung, thick and oppressive like a wet cloth. As if that wasn't enough, the unmistakable stench of burnt flesh added an even worse layer to it all. That was a smell Magnum was all too familiar with from years before, one he'd hoped he'd never have to smell again but simultaneously would never forget.

Magnum swallowed, tasting the overwhelming scent of copper in the back of his throat. Bile burned as it started to rise, and his attempt to stifle it sparked a deep cough that made him wince at the pain the motion sparked. Another cough came then, and, this time, he wasn't sure he could  _ stop _ coughing. It was coming from deep in his chest, rumbling around, causing the deep ache there to grow with each breath. It just added to the pain he was already feeling, both from the repeated drowning and from when the men who had kidnapped him had worked him over, and everything became one big mass of pain and breathlessness.

At the same time, he was almost certain he was going to be violently ill. There was a churning in his gut that was making its way up his throat, and he tried desperately to shove the nausea back down. He had enough problems right then; no need to add the certain agony that would come from vomiting with the current pain that was shooting through his sides and wrapping his chest in fire.

Somehow, he was finally able to get the coughing fit under control — thankfully, without being sick. He took a pointed, shallow breath as he tried to ease the way he was now panting as his lungs struggled for air.

The feeling of someone slapping his face brought his eyes open again, and he blinked blearily at the figure in front of him. It took an enormous effort for him to focus, and, when he finally managed to, it was to see Ivan standing in front of him.

The criminal's arms were folded as he leaned forward, watching his prisoner's face intently. When he saw Magnum blink at him, Ivan grinned and shifted back on his heels. "There you are," he greeted. "Ready to talk yet?"

Magnum swallowed. "I told you, I don't know what you want."

That prompted another shake of Ivan's head, and he waved to someone standing just out of Magnum's line of sight. "You're going to talk," Ivan said simply. "It's just a matter of how much pain you want to go through before you do. Come on. All you have to do is tell me what your partner has on me." If it was possible, Ivan's voice grew even chillier. "Otherwise, maybe I'll just have to go and find one of your friends to motivate you. Maybe Higgins?"

"Don't you dare," Magnum growled, his voice cracking on the last word. He coughed again but didn't break eye contact with Ivan. "She doesn't know any more about you than I do, which isn't much," he added. "I dunno what you think we have on you."

"Ah ah," Ivan corrected. "Come now, Magnum; you must remember. You went after Hayek, after all; the CIA must have had more on me than just that connection. Do you expect me to believe you don't know anything else?" he scoffed.

Something about the way the other man said Hayek's name made Magnum pause.  _ 'Partner… CIA…' _ The words echoed through his head, tumbling around as if they were trying to tell him something.

But what…

And then it hit him.

Hannah.

Magnum clenched his jaw, barely stopping himself from saying her name.

It was her, though. It had to be. There was no way they meant Higgins; even if they'd figured out she had been a spy, they would have assumed MI6, even if they hadn't had access to her background. It was an almost sure bet no one would think she was CIA. The mercs Ivan had hired certainly hadn't seemed to know she was anything besides a majordomo. And, speaking of the mercs, Magnum knew from his encounter with them that Ivan was after the SEAL who had been the inspiration for Robin's books. That meant they were after someone who had essentially been Magnum's partner while he was overseas. And since they weren't concerned with any of the military team Magnum had worked with, that just left Hannah as an option.

As his interrogator turned back to him, cables in either hand, Magnum decided to take a chance on his deduction. If nothing else, it would at least buy him some time.

"Hang on." He coughed but was satisfied to see the man pause. "Hang on. You… you want to know what intel she gathered on you while we were overseas? And you… you think I have it?" He gritted his teeth through another spasm of pain and then continued when no one interjected. "Let me guess… Someone dug up details on your criminal networks and dealings, and you think they just… what? Left it with me?"

He wasn't watching the goon anymore, instead keeping his gaze firmly fixed on where Ivan was standing a few paces away. The way the criminal's expression flickered for a split second told Magnum he was on the right track.

His mind was spinning, working a hundred miles an hour.

Hannah must have been collecting info on Ivan, although Magnum didn't know how long she'd been at it or if she'd continued after betraying Magnum and his teammates to the Taliban…

He shook his head in an attempt to banish the memory and forced himself to focus. It made sense though. Magnum could only guess at what she'd intended to do with the intel, but she'd never used it to take Ivan down, so she must have been planning to use it to her advantage at some point. She'd used some of it to go after certain targets, like the Hayek op — Robin had been in on that one — but it wasn't a leap to assume she had much more tucked away somewhere.

Before she'd sold them out and then subsequently disappeared from the job, she must have hidden the intel away somewhere she knew it would be safe… but somewhere no one else would think to look even if she was suspected of something and her things were searched. And that meant she would've hidden it in something she'd be sure he'd keep…

_ "And then I want to see the place you used to go to with your dad." _

_ "Luray Caverns?" _

_ "Yeah, I wanna see it." _

The conversation flashed through his mind, and he swallowed hard at the rush of feelings that swept through him at the memory of her voice. The bile that was still threatening to come up uninvited was hot in his throat.

He couldn't afford to go down that path. No, he needed to keep talking, keep Ivan on his toes, buy the others enough time to find him. And that meant solving this case in front of him, even if he wasn't about to give Ivan any of the pieces to the puzzle that was starting to come together.

There was only one place Hannah would've hidden something she couldn't risk getting lost, one place above all others she would've known would be safe.

His dad's watch.

Magnum swallowed again. He didn't have the watch on at the moment, and there was no way he was telling Ivan anything — and not just because that would send the man or his goons to the estate and potentially put his friends in harm's way again.

Meanwhile, his captor continued, seemingly oblivious to what Magnum had deduced. "I found out someone from the CIA had gotten to one of my people." Ivan shrugged. "At the time, I didn't know who or what they'd done with it. After a year or so, I managed to find the person at fault and… convinced him to talk, but whoever he'd been talking to had enough layers of deniability that he didn't know any names."

The look on Ivan's face told Magnum all he needed to know about just how the criminal had gotten that information.

"Let me guess, you two had a nice chat over a couple of cold beers?" Magnum grinned crookedly, feeling the expression tug at his swollen face.

Ivan lifted an eyebrow but otherwise didn't acknowledge the remark. "All he could tell me was that the SEAL from Robin Masters' novels knew where the intel is. After that, I did my homework and learned of the connection to the CIA." He shrugged. "As I'm sure you can appreciate, I  _ do _ need to destroy that information before it ends up in the wrong hands. So here we are."

Then Ivan gestured to the goon who'd been standing silently during the exchange, and Magnum's eyes followed the man as he turned toward the battery again.

"Wait!'' Magnum coughed as the word tore at his raw throat. "Hang on." He allowed himself to relax ever so slightly as the goon paused. "That's why you went after me like you did before," he said quickly, turning back to Ivan. "You did want Hayek, but you were also testing me to see if I was really the SEAL you were after."

The memory of Ivan's words in the jungle popped into Magnum's mind then. Ivan had left off on his explanation about what he wanted out of Hayek and Magnum with nothing more than a smirk and a cryptic,  _ "I'll leave it at that for now." _ There hadn't been time to press the issue then, but now Magnum was certain this was the conversation they would've had in the Triple Frontier if the other man had been willing to continue chatting.

The goon standing beside his chair backhanded Magnum across the face, the blow rocking the prisoner to the side.

Ringing exploded in Magnum's ears to match the stars that had overtaken his vision. He felt a sharp pain in his neck from his head jerking suddenly, but he was too busy concentrating on trying to breathe to care at the moment.

Rough fingers grasped his jaw and pulled him to face forward again. Magnum could smell the goon's breath as the man leaned in to snarl, "Answer the question!"

"Leave him!" Ivan's voice rang out from nearby.

Magnum blinked, forcing his eyes open to squint at the imposing figure standing in front of him.

"Uh, sir?" The goon sounded even more surprised than Magnum felt. "He didn't—"

"I want to hear this," Ivan replied harshly. Then he turned his attention back to the prisoner in the chair. "That's a good story. But why would I do that?"

Magnum glanced sideways at the goon, then swallowed and nodded. "Right, well, I was thinking. Even after you found out I was the SEAL behind Robin's books, it wouldn't make sense to jump straight to torturing me for info if your source was incorrect, and you couldn't be sure the part of the book that seemed to be based on the Hayek op wasn't just something Robin coincidentally made up. Which, by the way," he added with a pained chuckle, "it's pretty funny that someone like you spends his spare time reading the White Knight novels. What, do you keep paperbacks in your bathroom just in case?"

His chuckle broke off into a grunt as the goon slammed a fist into his stomach.

Magnum coughed as he hunched over instinctively, feeling the tears leaking from the corners of his eyes at the sudden lack of air. The move pulled at his shoulders from where his arms were secured to the chair.

A moment passed in silence, and then he felt fingers tangling in his hair and yanking his head up. Magnum gasped at the sudden movement, then coughed and took a ragged breath past the pain tightening his chest as the goon released him with a small shove.

"You were saying?" Ivan's voice was cold.

Magnum took another tentative breath, wincing as he did so.  _ 'Come on, Thomas,'  _ he told himself.  _ 'Pull it together. You just have to outlast him.' _

Another breath and he slowly nodded and continued. "Uh, right…" He coughed again. "You knew the SEAL who'd worked with the person who had all that intel on you was the one who went after Hayek the first time… because you were involved with him even then," Magnum added quickly, the thought suddenly hitting him. After all, Hannah  _ had  _ been the one to identify Hayek as a target the first time. It made sense, and, judging from the look that flickered through Ivan's eyes, Magnum was right. "You didn't want to waste the time or energy on me if I wasn't the person you were after, and I'm too well-connected as a P.I. No need to make a mess if I didn't know anything."

Ivan crossed his arms. "Go on."

Although Magnum was pretty sure the other man just wanted to find out how much he'd pieced together, the conversation was keeping his captors occupied. That was good, and not only because it was keeping them from going another round with the cables — or the water. It was also buying Magnum time; there was no doubt in his mind his friends were looking for him. The longer he could hold out against Ivan's questioning, the more time it gave the others to find him.

"That's why you went undercover in the Triple Frontier," Magnum continued a moment later, wincing as he coughed again. "You didn't want to reveal yourself if it wasn't necessary, but you wanted to observe first-hand so you could make an immediate decision. You cut out the middleman and just went yourself."

He tilted his head, wincing at the pain that shot through him as he tried to focus on the facts tumbling into place in his mind. "Hayek might have been paranoid, but he was still working, which means he still had contacts he trusted, any one of which you could've bought off. But you weren't really after him, were you? He would've just been a nice bonus. Hayek was your way to make sure I was who you were after."

Watching Ivan closely, Magnum was rewarded with the indication his theory was right. "You had planned to take me prisoner along with Hayek if that op had gone according to plan, hadn't you? But it didn't. We escaped and threw off your initial plans. So now… what?" he asked. "You want revenge for the Hayek op as well as finding the intel you're after?"

"What can I say?" Ivan grinned, and the expression sent chills down Magnum's spine. "I like to multitask. Now," he continued, "you know what I want. Where is it?"

Magnum set his jaw and returned the other man's gaze. "You can do whatever you want to me," he said firmly, ignoring the way his throat and chest still ached. "I'm not going to tell you."

"Hmm," Ivan hummed. "Pity. But I'm sure you'll feel differently if we bring one of your friends in for a little motivation."

Despite his best efforts to remain impassive, Magnum felt the blood drain from his face. He knew Ivan had seen the change in his expression, and, sure enough, the man smirked coldly.

"Who should I bring in? Rick? T.C.? Or how about that lovely partner of yours, Higgins? Oh, I hear she lasted quite a while when my people tried to question her before." Ivan clicked his tongue. "I wonder how long she'd hold out a second time?"

Magnum yanked at the bonds holding him in place and growled. The burning in his chest threatened to betray him, and he did his best to choke down his cough. He knew he couldn't convince the man not to carry out whatever plan he had, so he settled for threats instead. Maybe if he angered the guy enough, Ivan would stay focused on him. "I'm going to kill you."

"I'll leave you to think things over while we invite someone else to the party," was all Ivan said before he turned and strode for the door.

The guards followed close behind him, disappearing from Magnum's line of sight as they walked behind the chair to head for the exit.

The dull, metallic sound of the door swinging closed echoed behind the criminals, and Magnum suddenly found himself alone.

* * *

Higgins' phone rang while they were on the highway, and she immediately put it on speaker. "Gordon," she said in greeting, looking up to meet Rick's hopeful gaze from the rear seat. "Has the Ferrari been processed?"

Even though they all knew it would take a while to get any test results back, it had been some time, and Rick knew they were all hoping for an affirmative answer.

_ "We didn't find any prints at the scene besides Magnum's,"  _ came the reply.  _ "We're still waiting to hear back from the lab on the blood." _

All three let out a sigh at the lack of news.

_ "But I have some news for you on that boat that was docked by where you found the wristband,"  _ Katsumoto continued.  _ "The Coast Guard managed to locate it on the way to Kauai. Unfortunately, it looks like Magnum wasn't being held there." _

"What?" Higgins asked, the confusion clear on her face. "Are you sure?"

_ "Positive. They searched every inch of the vessel, but there was no sign of Magnum. The men who were on board are being brought back to Honolulu for questioning, but they're not talking at the moment." _

Rick cleared his throat. "Any chance there's a way to track where these guys had been before this?"

_ "We're working on it,"  _ Katsumoto assured him.  _ "I just figured you'd want to know what had happened with the boat." _

"Thanks, Gordon," Higgins acknowledged.

They could almost see the detective nod in acknowledgment as he replied,  _ "I'll keep in touch." _

T.C. was the first to break the silence that had descended over the van. "Now what?"

"We go talk to my guy," Rick said firmly. "And meanwhile, Higgy, any chance your program can find where the boat went before it headed out to sea?"

As he asked the question, T.C. started nodding along. "You're thinking it stopped somewhere else before the Coasties caught up to it?"

Higgins snapped her fingers. "Right. We were only looking for its path as it headed out to sea because we assumed they were making for another island or even breaking for international waters."

"So it's possible we missed it making a pit stop before that," Rick finished. He made a face. "I can't believe we didn't think of that sooner."

"Hey," T.C. said in response, "we were all focused on what seemed like the most obvious conclusion when we found out Magnum had to have been on that boat."

Swallowing, Rick tried to nod along. He still hated the fact that he'd let himself lose track of all the possibilities. It was something Thomas never would've done, and Rick clenched his jaw. If one of them had gone missing, Thomas would have thought through all of the angles. They owed him to do just as thorough of a job now that he was the one in trouble.

"I'll see what I can find," Higgins said then, interrupting Rick's thoughts. She reached into her bag on the floorboard for her tablet. "If these guys stopped anywhere after leaving that marina, I'll find out."

* * *

Kumu tried to stifle her worry as she pushed open the door to the cultural center. It had been a long day, and they were still nowhere close to finding Thomas. There had been little she could do to assist in the actual investigation, so she had gone in to work and try to take her mind off the situation. She'd kept her phone close at hand, just in case one of the others called her with an update about the case. However, there hadn't been much to report, and she had only gotten periodic texts letting her know how things were going.

But now that she had wrapped up the responsibilities she had at the cultural center, she was planning to head back to the estate and see what help she could be in tracking down leads on Thomas's whereabouts.

As she dug her keys out of her purse, Kumu sighed. She'd known Thomas Magnum long enough to know he usually found a way out of the trouble in which the man routinely found himself. However, it didn't stop her from being concerned about him every time it happened. She only hoped this would turn out to be another in the long line of escapades where Thomas figured a way out of whatever danger he'd gotten himself into. The private investigator might be a magnet for danger, but he always made it through one way or another.

A car engine grew louder behind her, and Kumu glanced up at the sound. She stepped out of the way so the vehicle could pass her, but then the sound of the engine changed. It sounded as if whoever was driving had parked rather than continued forward to drive past her.

She turned instinctively to look and then froze at the sight of a white SUV just a few yards away.

The feeling of something hard and cold pressed into the small of her back made her take a quick breath and freeze in her tracks.

"Don't turn around," a deep voice growled in her ear. "Hands up."

Kumu swallowed and nodded. "Okay. Okay. Take it easy," she said nervously, her hands going up almost instinctively.

"Toss your purse on the ground."

That gave her pause for just a moment; she'd been hoping to figure out a way to dial 911 or call Juliet back if given half the chance, but it seemed like that was no longer going to be an option. 

"Now!" the man barked, and he pushed a little harder with what Kumu could only assume was a gun to underscore his point.

Kumu didn't waste any more time before obeying. She pulled the bag off of her arm and then gave it a gentle underhanded throw toward the cars parked off to her right. Swallowing again, she returned her hands to their previous position. "There. I did it. What do you want? I don't have much money, but what I have is in—"

The gun dug into her back again. "Stop talking. Get in the car."

She bit her lip at that. Something told her it would be a very bad idea to follow the order, but she wasn't sure what else she could do. She wasn't Higgins or one of the guys; they'd all had training, but she didn't have many options other than to obey and hope for the best.

When the man prodded her with the gun, she swallowed hard and then nodded. "Okay, okay. I'm going."

A feeling of dread was settling in her stomach. Although she had been in her share of bad situations since becoming friends with Higgins, Magnum, and the others and had gotten through them safely, it didn't mean this was not going to be the exception. She could only hope the man needed her for something. He was driving a white SUV; maybe he was the one who was responsible for what had happened to Thomas… although Kumu wasn't sure if it was a good thing if he was or if she should hope he wasn't.

They reached the SUV just then, and Kumu tried to catch a glimpse of her captor in the window of the vehicle. The only thing she could see, though, was that he was a foot or so taller than she was. Besides that, she couldn't make out anything else; the guy was wearing a black ski mask, and his light jacket obscured any other identifying features like a tattoo.

"Open the door," he ordered. As she did as she'd been told, he continued. "There's a hood on the back seat. Buckle up and then put it on."

Stomach sinking even more, Kumu did so. Darkness fell around her as she pulled the dark bag over her head, then she felt something cold and hard close around her left wrist. The sound of handcuffs clicking accompanied a tug on her arm as the man attached the cuffs to something else in the car.

"My apologies, but I can't have you trying something while I'm driving," the man said, his voice close by her ear.

A moment later, Kumu heard her door close, then another door farther away closed as well. Then the vehicle lurched and started forward.

Anyone watching would have seen the white SUV turn out of the parking lot before speeding off down the otherwise quiet road in front of the cultural center.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the plot thickens...
> 
> I wanted to pull in some details from the series itself to create this story. There's so much that just makes sense to connect (at least in my head)! And the Ivan storyline felt so... open-ended after "The Day I Met the Devil," so I had to bring that in.
> 
> Hope you're all still enjoying this! Thank you again to everyone who's been reading, leaving kudos, and commenting!!


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